> This is the very situation where matrix devs should have made use of the
properties of XMPP to improve it. Even the outstanding feature (I admit.
its a fantastic idea) of matrix, decentralized conversation store, could
have been implemented in XMPP as an XEP. Imagine the time and effort
spent on improving XMPP, instead of reinventing wheels in matrix. We
could have had a neat ubiquitous IM platform.
The approach XMPP took may have made sense when it was created, and it definitely had a lot of success early on at creating a truly federated IM network, but a lot of that evaporated when people and companies started needing more from the system than XMPP could guarantee.
XMPP + a bag of XEPs isn't a "neat ubuquitous IM platform" unless we get an XMPP2 that mandates certain key modern XEPs. It's just a big giant mess, the same one it's been for a long time.
Maybe that's where Matrix should have started, I dunno. But they are where they are and the reality is that it's not up to the IETF to dictate how things should evolve. If Matrix supplants XMPP as a dominant open IM federation, and the people behind it want it to be standardized, all the "but XMPP did it first" in the world shouldn't prevent that.
I think the point that FOSS enthusiasts fail to understand repeatedly is that once a protocol becomes so embedded and fractured over multiple implementations, it becomes impossible to change.
There have been efforts to modernise irc as well but IRC still isn’t even keeping pace, let alone catching up.
I think the easiest way to handle this is to actually just drop legacy and start again when you reach this point. It is infinitely easier to build your own solution from scratch than it is to move a mountain and convince an existing community and ecosystem to do what you think is best.
And matrix is proof this works. After trying it again this year, I think they have finally created a product which works really well.
> And matrix is proof this works. After trying it again this year, I think they have finally created a product which works really well.
The server and clients improved. The protocol did not improve.
The protocol is still designed to be a metadata sponge that proliferates this data as far as possible. There’s no way you’d design it in the same way today if you didn’t have intelligence funding in the earliest stages…
If XMPP clients improved, you’d say the same thing. “Wow, I guess XMPP works”
I don't think I'd characterize HTTP as having fractured in anything like the way XMPP has, which seems to have deliberately chosen a wild-west approach to extensibility vs. HTTP's more modest evolution. Until we got http2 and http3 in a span of 5 years, but that's because a big megacorp forced it to happen -- and even then those are backwards compatible with http1.1.
So is there a list of "Modern XMPP" compliant clients, server software and hosts that I can compare the experience of to the Matrix ecosystem?
I was a pretty big user of XMPP with Pidgin on first GTalk and then later DDG's server back in the day, because that's certainly not comparable. I'd really like an open chat solution to succeed, but from where I sit "Can I convince any of my friend groups to move from discord to this?", Matrix is substantially in the lead.
It takes an appropriately set up xmpp server and essentially reproduces a social network. Microblogs, groups, and chat. Implements OMEMO and the like if memory serves. It is a great platform and just as compelling as Discord IMO.
> It takes an appropriately set up xmpp server and essentially reproduces a social network. Microblogs, groups,
This to me is missing the point - I don't even like Discord's attempts to expand into social networking, and Skype's attempts at doing the same was the impetus for many of my friend groups to move to Discord. What's needed is something that does group chats and PMs effectively.
No, this discussion isn't a comparison of implementations it's a question/discussion of why "the latest implementation" is tied to a new extensible protocol instead of a new baseline of the existing extensible protocol. There may well be reasons but "the first implementation was on the new protocol" explains the current state not how things got there.
That's pretty neat. Are there any compliant clients? If I google the XEP you linked I can't find anything but mailing lists and posts talking about it.
We're working on surfacing this information. It's hard keeping track of a diverse and evolving ecosystem - it's been attempted in the past (years ago), but manually keeping things up to date didn't work out because the info quickly got stale. More recently we've built tooling so that projects can document what they support in a machine-readable format on their site or in their repo. Most active XMPP projects are already on board with this, and we should see some nice front ends to it live soon.
The ultimate goal is an easy user-facing site with a shortlist of the clients that implement the expected modern features, alongside a longer filterable list for people who don't necessarily care about certain features (calls, for example, which are generally not expected in TUI apps).
Standards need extensibility, but you can't just slap major extensibility framework on top of a small core and then get a blanked claim that competing standards must be implemented as extensions. A good litmus test is how useful is XMPP without extensions today?
> it will
be better for XMPP and Matrix devs to combine their efforts
I don't like that open chat protocols have taken so long to get adoption either, but coercing an organizational structure seems like the best way to keep the status quo.
Imo, good standards have been tried and proven in a "many-degrees-of-freedom manner" before being accepted, such as a major OSS project with thousands of active users, which matrix is doing now. Design by comittee has a terrible track record.
> This is the very situation where matrix devs should have made use of the properties of XMPP to improve it. Even the outstanding feature (I admit. its a fantastic idea) of matrix, decentralized conversation store, could have been implemented in XMPP as an XEP. Imagine the time and effort spent on improving XMPP, instead of reinventing wheels in matrix. We could have had a neat ubiquitous IM platform.
The approach XMPP took may have made sense when it was created, and it definitely had a lot of success early on at creating a truly federated IM network, but a lot of that evaporated when people and companies started needing more from the system than XMPP could guarantee.
XMPP + a bag of XEPs isn't a "neat ubuquitous IM platform" unless we get an XMPP2 that mandates certain key modern XEPs. It's just a big giant mess, the same one it's been for a long time.
Maybe that's where Matrix should have started, I dunno. But they are where they are and the reality is that it's not up to the IETF to dictate how things should evolve. If Matrix supplants XMPP as a dominant open IM federation, and the people behind it want it to be standardized, all the "but XMPP did it first" in the world shouldn't prevent that.